Don't call it a fight when you know it's a war
by Craploadsofawesomeness
Summary: She knows how to kill a man fifty different ways, just using her two hands, and yet, all of it is no use when Cheryl holds her right one excitedly to show her a cute dog she sees when they're walking. She knows twenty different ways of having a choke hold on someone, and yet, can't shake off the one Cheryl has on her heart. The one where Toni is an assassin sent to kill Cheryl
1. Chapter 1

She is twenty three, and killing is a way of life.

The hows and the whys don't matter to her. The Serpents teach her all she needs to know. They teach her how to silence someone who has been trading state secrets to people they really shouldn't be talking to, how to interrogate and torture, and spy. How to exchange secrets and how to protect people by using force if necessary.

(It always is necessary)

She is used to it by now. It has been six years of training and espionage, and while it is a gang she is part of, she doesn't do it out of desperation. The Serpents are her family. She would die for them if she has to

She is twenty three, when her life changes.

"Target's name is Cheryl Blossom. Sophomore year in college. Lives in an apartment just off-campus, alone."

"Should be easy," Toni notes, filing her nails while sitting on the edge of Jughead's desk.

"She's in college, so don't rush. They've given you about two months to do it, so make sure you tie up any loose ends before you leave."

"Consider it done," she responds, still working on her nails.

"Doesn't it bother you?" bursts out of Betty in a rush. They're all sitting in the huge office, almost empty because it's already 11 at night, Jughead, Betty, Sweet Pea and Veronica, and everyone holds their breath as soon as the question is asked.

Toni turns to look at her, slowly "If it did bother me, I certainly wouldn't tell you now, would I?"

They don't need to know it bothers her. They don't need to know about the fact that she takes pills to help her sleep most days of the week, that either way, she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming her head off, imagining the blood on her skirt, on her waitress uniform, on her pants, in her eyes.

(Always a different uniform, always a different bleeding person.

The screams are the same though. The dying look in their eyes similar. The same mix of terror melding into resignation)

The fact that they are all terrible people doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because they all mostly have families, families they have secrets from but families nonetheless. People who love the person wearing the mask, who are waiting for them to come home at the end of the day. It doesn't matter because while their suffering ends as soon as most of the blood has run out of their bodies, Toni's starts then. It starts the moment she finishes rolling up the body into a rug and disposing of her slick plastic coat, the minute she gets home, gets into the shower and watches the blood run into the drain. It starts the second she falls into bed and closes her eyes.

But what is the point of saying it out loud? It won't help. Talking about it to Betty fucking Cooper certainly won't. Sometimes she sits with Sweet Pea, with Veronica on the couch, drinks the strongest scotch she can find, and they both silently acknowledge the carnage they've wreaked in people's lives. That feels good, having someone by her side who knows what it's like. But at the end of the night, Sweet Pea is a Serpent through and through, Veronica goes home to her pathetically puppy-dog-like (and sweet, but she'd never admit that out loud) Secret Service boyfriend, Archie, and Toni collapses into her cold bed alone.

And that's fine. It's alright that she's alone. Her life is a complicated mess, and bringing someone else into it would fuck her plans up.

This is fine. This is easy.

Cheryl blows her away.

On some level, Toni assumes it's because of the way she is. Cheryl is that kind of person. The kind of girl who sneaks her way into your heart, simply because of how bright, and smart and funny she is. And beautiful, of course. Cheryl likes to think she is above irrelevant factors like physical appearances, but even she has to admit that she is one of the most beautiful people she has ever seen in her life. Sparkling eyes, fiery-red hair, and soft-looking lips, she is the kind of girls who turns heads.

In retrospect, Toni should have known she'd be collateral damage.

She is fine, until she is not.

It's fine during recon. She scopes out the girl, gradually starts talking to her and builds up an acquaintance. Gets her number over an excuse of exchanging class notes and does her usual gig of flipping her hair, flirting a little, pulling out her seduction techniques. And it's going fine, until the night of the milkshake.

Cheryl looks at her under the lights of the tiny diner (Pop's, she thinks), and there is something so sad, so melancholy about her eyes when she talks about her mother, that it feels like she is drowning, like this is something that is way out of her control. She doesn't mean to say the things she does, (it was a lie, something to gain her trust, she would tell Jughead and Veronica later, and they'd look at her with eyes that somehow know more than she does) but it slips out anyway, and when Cheryl's voice involuntarily cracks, Toni puts her hand on top of her. She tells her that she isn't loveless or deviant.

She tells her she is sensational.

For the first time in her life, she wants someone to believe her.

She doesn't realize how or why or when it happens.

The Serpents haven't taught her this.

She knows how to kill a man fifty different ways, just using her two hands, and yet, all of it is no use when Cheryl holds her right one excitedly to show her a cute dog she sees when they're walking in the park. She can strangle someone in about thirty seconds, and it doesn't help when Cheryl sleepily rests her head on her shoulders when they're done watching their third movie of the night. She knows twenty different ways of having a chokehold on someone, and yet, can't shake off the one Cheryl has on her heart.

The world doesn't seem to be divided into targets and not-targets anymore, it is now a blur of wildflowers and blue skies and helium balloons and so much laughter her heart almost can't take it anymore. It's changed from dark-greys and blacks to red and blue and yellow and green, and Toni thinks

This is what it's like.

She tries to put everyone off. Makes up ridiculous excuses justifying why she hasn't ended the girl yet. Jughead, who is her official handler manages the higher-ups at the Serpents, and doesn't say anything, but she can see his eyebrows raising just a fraction of a second when she checks in with him every night. All of it to get just one more day with Cheryl, One more day, she thinks, one more walk. One more movie night.

And she thinks she is handling it, until the night Cheryl kisses her.

"I," she fumbles, stepping away after one long, sweet moment "I…..can't."

Cheryl looks embarrassed "I'm sorry, Toni, I just…..I just thought you….."

She backs away, says something about having to go, and runs away.

She runs away because this is already too much. It's just been a month, and she is in too deep. She thinks of the girl all the time, daydreams about her in class, while doing missions, before she closes her eyes at night. She runs away because she has orders to kill Cheryl and while she trusts her family, she can't

She can't hurt Cheryl. It's physically impossible for her to do it. She wants to cover her up in bubble wrap, to protect her from anything and everything that could possibly harm her. Including herself. She runs, because love, is going to ruin her life.

She thinks it already has.

She goes back after two days, apologizing for her freak-out, and they kind of go back to normal. It's still awkward though, with a lot of side-stepping and a lot of lingering glances, but try as she might, Toni cannot stop herself from falling in love any more than she can stop the sun rising. It's inevitable, and unstoppable like a force of nature, and like a force of nature, it's shaken her entire world around.

This goes on for a week.

This goes on till the night of the fight.

"Toni?" Cheryl asks, sleepy and surprised as she opens the door at one in the night "What's going on?"

Toni steps forward into the light, and Cheryl gasps as the light reflects off the mess she assumes her face looks like right now, with all the cuts and the bruises and the punches.

"I didn't," she starts, her voice cracking, because she is so, so, tired "I didn't know what to…."

Cheryl understands, without her saying the entire thing and pulls her in. She sits her on the couch, brings out her first-aid kit, and cleans the wounds up with so much tenderness she can't breathe.

"You're not going to ask me what happened?" she breaks the silence after all of it is done and they're just staring at each other.

"If you want to tell me, you can," the other girl tells her "I'm not going to ask you."

And oh, this is why she loves her so. This is why she makes her heart stop and stutter, and her breath catch in her throat. It's because Cheryl Blossom is Cheryl Blossom, and somehow she is the best person in the world, the most beautiful part of this universe, and now that Cheryl knows her, she cannot bear to lose her.

She lets her lead her to the bed, watches as she pulls a blanket over her, tells her goodnight, and then she reaches out and holds her wrist.

"Could you…..?" she asks, and Cheryl looks torn for a moment before she acquiesces.

She lays there, her eyes closed; assuming Cheryl has gone to sleep as she mentally goes over why this is all so wrong. She thinks of the Serpents and her mission and her duty, and she thinks over all the consequences of this entire thing, and yet, and yet, all of the reasons don't matter as she feels Cheryl's arm over her midsection. As she feels Cheryl breathe on her cheek. As she imagines her heart beating right next to her.

She keeps her breathing steady as she suddenly feels movement beside her. Cheryl shifting positions, she thinks for a moment, before she hears her talk.

"I know you can't tell me what's going on, but I do wish you didn't have to go through it all alone. I just…..Toni, I wish you'd let me be there for you."

"I can't sleep," Toni starts talking, in the middle of what seems to be a confession. She doesn't know why she does it. It just feels like something the other girl should know.

"I can't sleep. I don't sleep properly. I have nightmares."

"Okay?" Cheryl says, surprised and sounding adorably confused "Okay, you have nightmares."

"I just mean," she continues "I might wake you up with my screaming, and my thrashing and….."

Cheryl stares at her gently for a moment, before she leans down and presses a soft kiss to her lips.

"Goodnight, Toni," she says, and lays down with her head on Toni's chest.

Toni sleeps for eight hours straight.


	2. Chapter 2

For the first night in her life as a Serpent, Toni doesn't have nightmares.

Waking up is a surprise. She blearily opens her eyes, squinting against the light shining through the open blinds, and is unnerved when she finds a warm body in bed next to her. That shouldn't be new, over the years she's had quite a lot of warm bodies in bed next to her, but the thing is, they don't sleep there. It's two hours of pleasure, then Toni is either sneaking out in the middle of the night, or heavily hinting that they need to go home. It's a rule with her.

And Cheryl Blossom, she's learning, breaks a lot of her rules.

Sometime during the night, they had shifted positions, and now they're both facing each other, with Cheryl's hands curled up under the covers between their bodies while Toni's right arm lies over her waist. The light isn't directly on her face, but Toni can see right up close, and she can't stop staring.

Cheryl is beautiful. It's not something she's realized the first time, and it certainly won't be the last, but now, with a little bit of light on her face, her hair all messed up and lying over her forehead, she looks like an absolute angel. A snoozing, red-haired angel who apparently (and here Toni grins a little bit) drools in her sleep.

"What are you smiling about?" Cheryl asks, without opening her eyes, and Toni's smile grows wider.

"Nothing."

"Uh huh," comes a mumble, and the sleeping girl finally opens her eyes. She blinks, once, twice, as if to focus, then opens them completely and looks at her.

"You didn't have a nightmare," she says, all matter-of-fact.

"No, I didn't," Toni replies, then frowns "Wait, how do you know that?"

"Because I put an alarm," Cheryl tells her, simply "Well, actually, two. I googled how long it usually takes to start dreaming after we fall asleep, and there were a lot of different answers, but most of them said about 60 to 90 minutes after you fall asleep. So I put one alarm for an hour after we went to bed, and another two hours after. I woke up and you were still sleeping okay, so I fell asleep myself."

Toni stares at her, at this girl who put two alarms on her phone just so she could help her through a nightmare, and thinks, not for the first time _I don't deserve you. I don't deserve you, and you certainly shouldn't be stuck with someone as depraved as I am, someone so terrible, so monstrous, so…..unworthy. You deserve someone is good, someone who would treat you the way you deserve to be treated._

And then she thinks, _but as long as you let me, I will be the demon who tries to be all of that for you._

"I can't kill her," she announces in the office, two days later, and is surprised at their complete lack of reaction.

"Yeah," Veronica tells her "We figured this was going to happen like after a week of you meeting her."

She gapes.

"Don't look like that," Jughead comments, dryly "You've been smiling like crazy."

"Almost as if you're happy," Sweet Pea adds in, trying to sound disgusted, but she can hear genuine pleasure in his voice.

"It's disgusting," Jughead cuts in, again.

"I think it's cute," Betty says, throwing a reproving look at her boyfriend, who just holds his hands up "We're all really happy for you."

Toni stares at the lot of them, at this band of misfits and murderers and criminals, who are happy for her, who are smiling at her because they evidently care about her, and there's a prickling in her eyes that tells her she's about to cry in a few seconds, but goddamn it.

"Thank you," she manages, after a few seconds.

"Anytime," Fangs speaks for all of them, and she believes it.

"FP might know," Fangs proposes that night, when they're knee deep in papers, trying to figure out why it is that the Serpents want her dead.

"Um," Sweet Pea notes "Could it be that he gave the orders?"

"No way," Jughead jumps to his dad's defense "This one came from the higher-ups. And after he was in jail. And even if he'd been free, there's no way he would have. I don't think….."

Betty puts a calming hand on his shoulder, and he relaxes a little bit, though still stiffer than usual. Toni extends her hands, placating.

"No one's accusing your dad of anything, Jug," she says "But he could know why, right?"

FP's eyes nearly pop out of his head when they show him Cheryl's photo "Oh God," he says, and leans back in his rickety chair, hands over his gaunt face "Oh God."

"You know her?" Toni questions, at the same time that Jughead asks "You know who she is?"

"Yeah," he tells them "She's Jason's sister."

Three words, and Toni finally understands.

She finally understands who the JJ in Cheryl's stories is. The JJ, who was her twin brother, the one person in her life who loved her and understood her, her one and only support throughout her lonely life with her terrible parent. The JJ who died in a drug deal gone wrong.

"But I thought her dad killed him," she says on the ride back home.

"He did," Jughead replies, a dark look on his face "But my dad had kidnapped him for a while before that. It was…..a whole other mess."

"Mess sums it up pretty nicely," Sweet Pea says from the backseat, and then there is quiet for the rest of the ride.

"You can't kill her just because she's testifying!"

Tall Boy towers over her, but she faces him down "I'll do whatever I can to get FP back. He's our head."

"FP doesn't fucking approve of this!" she screams in his face "You went behind his back."

"I went behind his back so he could be free. He'll understand later."

Frustrated, she runs a hand through her hair, and he sneers at her.

"What?"

"I very much doubt your loyalty to the Serpents right now, Toni," he says her name with pure venom in his tone, and Toni flinches "Are you forgetting who your real family is? Are you forgetting who took you in when your parents died and raised you? Are you forgetting the man who was almost your father?"

"What do you mean I can't testify?"

"I mean you can't testify, Cheryl, please just listen to me, please," she says, running around her apartment, looking for the cupboards.

"How do you know about…?"

"It doesn't matter, goddamnit! Just…..get your clothes, we're leaving."

"We're not going anywhere till you tell me what's going on? How do you know about the trial?"

"We don't have time! They could be on their way here to kill you at any moment, and I'll be damned if I let that happen!"

"Who is on their way here right now?" Cheryl asks her, her voice controlled but Toni can sense the fear coiled inside of it.

"The Serpents," Toni answers, heavily.

"And how exactly do you know about this?"

"Because, Cheryl Blossom," a voice comes from the window "She is one of us."

"Penny," Toni calls out, standing between her and Cheryl, angling her body such that the girl behind her is mostly shielded, a million thoughts running through her head. Mostly along the lines of _how could she have been so stupid and distracted and dumb to let something like this pass her notice._

"Topaz," comes the reply, almost spat in her direction.

"Look," she says, calmly, evaluating her options "I talked to her. She won't be testifying at the trial."

Behind her, Cheryl gives an almost silent indignant scoff at her lie, and while she knows that this is not the time, that Cheryl definitely hates her now, that there's a very good chance she might die today, a part of her can't help but want to smile at the very gall of this girl.

"That doesn't matter," Penny Peabody tells her "Not to me. I have my own ends to meet, and they aren't related to either FP or small fish like Tall Boy. Nah, I have much bigger plans in mind."

Toni slowly raises her hands, to show that she is unarmed, and making a huge show out of it, fiddles with her watch. She presses a tiny button on it, and waits for a miracle.

Five minutes, hopefully.

"You know," she raises her voice "I, um, wouldn't mind knowing those plans myself, you know. I might be of some help to you."

Penny stares at her for a long second, and then bursts into laughter.

"You? A traitor to the Serpents? You think I'm crazy enough to believe that?"

Okay, that failed.

Penny stalks towards her, and she crouches into a defensive position.

"You're not going to hurt her," she says, and swipes for Penny's knife hand

Everything is instinct then. Moving, circling each other, trying to avoid the sharp stings of her knife. She kicks and lunges, and gets cut more places on her body than she ever has. It hurts but something inside of her burns even hotter, the same something that would do anything to make Cheryl smile. The same something that would kill for Cheryl Blossom.

The same something that would die for her.

And it doesn't come as a shock, the thought. She isn't that injured, surely not fatally, but the thought of her death is on her mind. She's anticipated it since her first kill, and this? Dying in the protection of the girl that she loves? Definitely a worthy cause.

Fortunately, tonight she doesn't have to.

She looks at Fangs, Jughead and Sweet Pea crashing through the door, and for the first time in her life, thanks some higher power up there for keeping her alive.

"You're bleeding," Cheryl says, flatly.

"It doesn't matter!" she says "Cheryl, please don't testify at the trial. FP wasn't to blame for your brother…."

"Do not," the girl raises her voice, then, and Toni falls silent "Talk of my brother, you…"

"Cheryl," she pleads, taking a step forward "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't touch me!"

She freezes in her position.

"You lied to me. Betrayed me," Cheryl explodes, her voice shaking and cracking, and Toni swears she can feel it all the way down to her own heart "Pretended to…..I don't know, love me? And all for what? Just so you could get close enough to kill me? I can't even…I can't even look at you."

"It wasn't like that," she insists, shaking her head "Cheryl, I…it started that way, but I swear, I haven't pretended. Not one moment after that day at the movie. It was all real for me, okay? Falling in love with you, starting to care for you. I think I'm in love with you, Cheryl. None of it was fake, I promise."

"I don't trust the word of liars," Cheryl says, finally, the tears now freely falling "Please, go."

"Cheryl," she starts, but is cut off.

"I want you to leave."

But I love you, she thinks, but doesn't say. Her love is what's gotten them all into this mess, anyways. She takes a last look at Cheryl, standing in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around herself as she cries, and against every instinct in her body willing her to stay, walks out.


	3. Chapter 3

After all the shit that went down because Cheryl wanted to testify, Cheryl ends up not testifying.

Toni finds out because the entire gang comes up to her in the office and tells her, even though they know she knows too. She had promised to stay away, and she has, but she still keeps tabs on Cheryl. Sees her around college, even though she un-enrolled soon after that day. It is her way of making sure she is safe.

Not that the other girl needs it. Once FP comes out of prison, Penny is officially de-Serpentised and Tall Boy put out of power. Things change for a while, and then slowly, steadily start going back to the way they were.

Except for Toni.

"You want to quit," the King of the Serpents says to her, when she comes to meet him in his office.

"I don't want to quit," she tells him back "The Serpents are my family. Jughead, Veronica, Sweet Pea, Fangs, they're my best friends. FP, I think of you as my father."

He tilts his head thoughtfully, then "You do want to tell me something monumental, though."

"I want to quit what I do. At least the killing and the torturing part. I could work in research, and I'm still one of your best undercover agents, and I'd still handle a gun, but I won't…I can't do the killings anymore."

"Any particular reason?"

She shrugs.

"You fell in love," he says after an intense staring contest, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile "Toni Topaz, you bloody fell in love."

"What? No? No way? What even are you….okay, fine," she admits, after the weak spluttering "Maybe."

"Who is it?"

"Cheryl Blossom," she says, finding hilarity in the way his face drops into the most comically-shocked expression she has ever seen.

"Cheryl Blossom?" he asks.

"Yep."

"The Cheryl Blossom?"

"Yeah."

"Jason Blossom's sister Cheryl Blossom?"

"Last time I checked, yes."

He sits down on his chair "Oh boy. You've got a lot of trouble on your hands."

She shakes her head, then "No, it's…it's not like that. She doesn't….she kind of hates me."

"Well, you did lie to her. It's understandable."

"She deserves a better person."

"Then be a better person," FP says, like it's the simplest thing in the world.

It's not. It's really not.

She enrolls for a photography course in another college nearby, digging into her Serpent funds to help her along. Works her ass off at some small-time magazine that is in dire need of photographers and earns a few bucks there. When it's still not enough, she drags Fangs (who is out of action for about two months because of a stray bullet) to a coffee shop and asks the crusty manager there if he has vacancies for both of them. He gives them a long, judgmental look, a long hard look that asks what's up with the pink hair and the numerous tattoos, and all the while Toni thinks that if she just wasn't in the presence of a bunch of college-going people, she'd probably take her knife out and stab him in his neck so hard he'd die.

"I don't think this is the best place for…..you," he says, finally.

Toni grabs Fangs around his arm tightly as he starts to get up to probably headbutt the man, and says, in the most disgusting tone of voice she has ever heard herself use "But sir," she starts, putting her hand on the manager's arm, letting her face drop into a pitiful expression "We really need the money, sir. It'd help a lot. I'd be very grateful."

He swallows "Alright, you start on Monday."

"Great," she perks up instantly, starting to walk out "My boyfriend and I will be there."

In the distance she hears his say "Boyfriend?", but she and Fangs are already doubled over laughing, and really couldn't care less.

And that's how she runs into Cheryl, just over a month later.

It's been the most exhausting month of her life. She almost misses killing people.

(Almost)

She almost misses killing people because people, are assholes. There are assholes in her class, in the magazine she interns for, and in the coffee shop. Hungover college-goers who blearily blurt out their orders in an incoherent mumble, and expect her to make sense of it, idiots who keep tapping their watches as though it'll make the coffee machine run any faster, and a special brand of smart asses who try to hit on her. She thinks of quitting almost fifty times a day. The only thing that keeps her here is Cheryl.

Every time she thinks of quitting, she thinks of Cheryl, and how she had promised to become a better person for her. She imagines them a year later, Toni with a nice steady photography job lined up, running into Cheryl, and hopefully the girl would still be single, and Toni would get down on one knee and declare her eternal love for the girl and…..

"Toni!" Fangs screams "The icing!"

Ah well.

With the amount of time she spends fantasizing about their first meeting, it's almost hilarious that the first time they actually do meet; she doesn't even realize it until it's too late.

It's a bad day, the machine threw up icing on her early in the morning, and people have been screaming at her all day, and when the next person comes, she just sleepily mumbles "Morning. What can I get you, today?" and then looks up.

The girl in front of the counter gives a start, and her head snaps up almost immediately "Toni?"

"Cheryl," Toni waves weakly at her "Surprise?"

"I'll have a….." Cheryl starts, after the initial shock of the situation wears off, and she decides to go back to Ice-Queen Cheryl.

"I know what your order is," Toni reminds her, quietly.

There is a flash of pain in the other girl's eyes, before it is replaced with indifference, and she blurts out another coffee order.

"Things change," Cheryl says.

Toni gives her a hard look, then starts making the coffee. She scribbles a "It's really nice to see you, Cheryl" on a piece of paper she tapes on top of the lid, and gives it to Cheryl.

Cheryl doesn't say anything to that, just collects the coffee and walks out.

She comes back though. Walks in two days later, when Jughead, Sweet Pea and Veronica have dropped in at a non-busy hour and are laughing at the counter.

"Move, hobo," she tells Jughead, and stands in front of Toni. She says another coffee order, and waits regally as it is prepared. Toni scrawls a "You're back!" onto lid, and hands it to her, but, like last time, Cheryl takes one look at it, then walks out again.

"That went well," Veronica notes.

"She's scary," Jughead adds, adjusting his beanie.

"Eh, I don't know," Sweet Pea says "Think Toni still has a chance."

Toni looks at him with a smile on her face, because no matter how glacial Cheryl's looks may be, or how amazing she is at giving the silent treatment, she still thinks there's a chance.

This goes on for a week. Every day Toni will scrawl a small note and fix it on top of the lid, something like "Having the worst day today" or "Class was amazing, I took like three amazing photos of the same lame fruit of bowl", and Cheryl will take one look at it and walk out.

One day, though, to Toni's immense surprise, Cheryl decides to sit in the café, and have her coffee. Toni is so astounded she almost messes up three orders because she's too busy sneaking glances at the girl sitting by the window, staring at the world outside. When the girl finally leaves, Toni jumps up to go to her table, even though she is supposed to be minding the counter. She sees her empty coffee cup, with her note fluttering on top of it. She grabs it, reads her own words, a small "Hope you're having a good morning today", turns the page over, and smiles, her heart doing a strange dance all over her chest.

On the other side, in beautiful penmanship, is written "I am, thank you. Hope you're having one too, even though you've been screamed at by a bunch of different people all in the span of ten minutes."

 _Yes_ , she thinks, _now I am having a good day._

This is what happiness is, Toni thinks. The tiny anticipation of Cheryl's arrival, the excitement of her departure so she can read what she's written today, and see her turn back to give her a tiny, uncertain smile. The way she had fallen in love a few months ago, the desperate intense love that used to keep her up at night due to the worrying and the lying, has now settled in her chest like the calm after a storm. She still stays up at nights, but now it's because she keeps reading what Cheryl had said about her morning class or that annoying professor who kept singling her out. She still longs, still aches, still craves, but it's sweeter now.

And for this, she can wait forever. She can wait out a year of this, of tiny notes hidden on coffee cups, of small, longing glances across a crowded coffee shop, of tiny smiles and small peals of laughter. She can wait forever for Cheryl Blossom.

 _It's raining outside._

 _Cheryl cannot believe that she'd be so stupid to forget her umbrella back at the flat when the skies have been grey since the morning, but apparently, the bloom of a second-first love have indeed rendered her a moron. She thinks of waiting this storm out, but it doesn't look like it's letting up soon, and she has work to do. She gets up and starts walking towards the door._

" _You're going out in the rain?" Toni asks her._

" _I don't have any other option," she replies, shrugging._

" _Yes, you do," the pink-haired girl tells her, then walking out of the booth with an umbrella in her hand, gestures towards the door "Lead the way, M'lady."_

" _What? No. You can't just leave your post like…"_

" _Fangs will take care of it," she replies "It's okay, Cheryl. I'll just drop you off and be back in fifteen."_

 _So they start walking. Slowly, very mindful not to touch each other, although Cheryl has the irrational urge to reach out and take Toni's hand every time their knuckles brush up against each other's._

" _This is nice," Toni breaks the silence, after five minutes._

" _Really?" she arches an eyebrow at her, just because she wants her to keep talking._

" _Yeah, it's like…I don't know, a fresh start or something."_

" _You can't start what never ended."_

" _Well, yeah, but you can rewrite it. You can try to go back to the beginning, tweak a few things here and there, and find that you have an entirely different ending than you originally planned."_

" _I don't think that's how it works," Cheryl says, because no matter how crazy she is for this girl, there's some history that isn't easily forgotten._

 _Toni stops in the middle of the street, and turns to her._

" _Hi, Cheryl," she starts "I'm Toni Topaz, originally named Antoinette Topaz, and I am a part of the street gang known as the Serpents. I used to kill for them, but I've moved onto other things, and now I go to college. I've taken a course in photography, and work in a tiny magazine, and also have a part-time job as a barista. I'm trying to," she looks Cheryl right in the eyes now "Be a better person. For me. And also, for this girl I'm kind of in love with, and who I'm willing to wait forever for, if she wants me to."_

" _Forever is a long, long time," Cheryl whispers._

" _That's okay," Toni tells her " For you, I can wait longer."_


End file.
